Thursday, August 11, 2011

The Porky Media and the Separatist Scare

I don't know who writes the editorials at the Globe. But I suspect they vibrate sympathetically to the squeals of their porky corporate masters. Because this is absolute hogwash.

Mr. Lebel, who joined the Bloc in 1993, dropped his Bloc membership 10 years ago. When he ran for the Conservatives in a 2007 by-election, he was clear that he while he was a Quebec nationalist, he had cast his lot for a united Canada.

Ms. Turmel, by contrast, appeared to be an activist for the NDP while simultaneously holding a Bloc membership card and membership in the sovereigntist provincial party Québec Solidaire. She swore off her affiliation with the Bloc only this year, and then, only for “personal reasons” – and never in a public forum, until The Globe and Mail revealed her affiliation. And she now leads the government-in-waiting.

As if granny Turmel, the temporary leader of an opposition party, four years away from an election, was a clear and present danger. As if the NDP was a separatist party. When everyone knows their only real "crime" in the eyes of the Globe and Pork, is to suggest that big corporations should pay more taxes.

If they can't call them communists, then by jingo, separatists they must be.

Which is not just disgusting, it's dangerous. For unlike that garbage this is so true.

It should be easy to understand that for a political party to be successful in any political community, it has to speak convincingly to its aspirations, its understandings and its values. Layton spoke convincingly to Quebecers and — with a lot of help from favourable circumstances — was amply rewarded. But, evidently, in Canada’s contemporary political culture, if a federal party is successful in Quebec, there must be “pandering” going on.

In other words, there exists, deeply anchored in English-speaking Canadian political consciousness, a belief that there is no proper Canadian way to address Quebecers’ aspirations. And Quebecers who have been attracted to the sovereignist movement at some point, to some degree, for however long or short a period, are not to be trusted. But something like 60 per cent of francophone voters is a lot of people to exclude from the Canadian political conversation.

The current agitation around the Turmel affair had been simmering ever since the “orange wave” swept Quebec. It is fundamentally about the question of how and whether Canadians will be able to accommodate themselves to a Quebec that is willing to participate in the governance of Canada. The attacks on Turmel, and on Layton’s supposed lack of judgment in putting her forward as interim leader, serve to reaffirm two decades of Canadians’ blindness to their relationship with Quebec. They are about keeping Quebecers and other Canadians as far apart from each other as possible, without actually breaking up the country.

Any English Canadian who doesn't understand that will NEVER understand Quebec...or EVER know Canada.

And will one day regret it more than they can ever imagine.

The other day the great McGill political scientist Desmond Morton called the way the media has handled the Turmel story "revolting." And I agree completely because I love this country and want it to stay together.

Anyone who plays the Separatist Scare for political advantage is just pathetic.